


Dead Boy In Our Bed

by aunt_zelda



Category: Sagas of Sundry: Dread (Web Series)
Genre: Comes Back Wrong, F/M, Multi, Post-Series, Recovery, Trauma, Yuletide 2017, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 22:09:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13133229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aunt_zelda/pseuds/aunt_zelda
Summary: Tanner comes back ... or does he?





	Dead Boy In Our Bed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pax](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pax/gifts).



> Hope you enjoy this eerie little treat fic.

The moon wanes. On a dark night when even the stars seem dark and distant, Sat and Kayden wake up to a dead boy in their bed. 

He smells of dirt and blood. He’s wet like mud and cold like ice. There are filthy footprints scattered through their shitty apartment, leading to the window he crawled in through. 

Maybe he’s not really dead, because he’s breathing. The dead don’t breathe, do they? 

The dead don’t scream, and the boy screams when they wake up. They’re all screaming, flailing around, panicking. The bulb from the ceiling swings wildly, casting shadows around the room. 

Kayden goes for the brass knuckles he keeps polished and ready on the nightstand. Sat tackles him, begging, pleading, wait, just wait. 

Kayden waits. Sat approaches the filthy dead boy. 

He’s barefoot. His clothes are ripped. His eyes are hollow. Maybe he’s alive after all. 

Sat touches his shoulder and he flinches. Kayden slides the brass knuckles onto his hand just in case this gets nasty, or if he needs to make it nasty. 

The dead boy whimpers, shaking, like that weird kid in homeroom who used to get seizures. He leans against Sat and mumbles nonsense. 

Sat gets Kayden to help her, fetches a bucket of warm water from the sink and an old t-shirt, and starts cleaning up the dead boy. 

He’s not talking yet. He whimpers and whines like a dog but he doesn’t bite, he doesn’t lash out, not even when Kayden helps scrub the dirt and caked blood off his skin. 

Maybe he’s not alive. Alive, Tanner would have never let Kayden get this close without objecting. 

They take off the dead boy’s ragged shirt, wash his skinny torso clean, and put him in one of Kayden’s shirts. Getting the dead boy’s pants off is harder, and they work fast to clean him there before sliding him into the pajama pants Kayden wears on the days when he doesn’t get called in to work. 

Sat strips the filthy sheets off the bed and puts new sheets down. Kayden watches the dead boy, watching her. He remembers the way that Tanner looked at Sat. The dead boy is looking at her in a different way. 

Together they pull the dead boy into bed, between themselves, warming him with their bodies. He is cold, and then he is not so cold. He shivers in the night. He cries. Once, he screams, and settles when Sat and Kayden hold him tightly. 

In the morning, while the dead boy is still asleep, Sat and Kayden talk about him. 

“I think he’s dead.” Kayden says. 

“I think he’s alive.” Sat says.

“He’s not Tanner.” Kayden says. 

“He’s Tanner.” Sat says. 

The dead boy stays. He eats when they feed him, though they have to feed him by hand. He sleeps in their bed and cries and screams less and less. He’s still cold, but he’s not as cold as ice. 

Kayden tries to goad him into sniping at each other, like he and Tanner used to. The dead boy doesn’t respond. 

Sat tries to put a camera in his hands. The dead boy drops it. 

Kayden punches the walls in their shitty apartment. Sat cries and pours all the beer down the drains because she’s afraid of drinking it all herself. The dead boy stumbles around after them. 

One day the dead boy looks up, blinks, and says “Sat.” He reaches for her and she falls on him, holding him tightly. 

“Sat,” the dead boy says, over and over. “Sat. Sat. Sat.”

Kayden’s about to duck out of the room and give them some semblance of privacy … when the dead boy says something else.

“Kayden.” 

Kayden steps forward carefully. 

The dead boy pushes him lightly on the shoulder. “Kayden.” 

Kayden nudges him slightly. “Yeah. Hey.”

“Kayden. Sat.” The dead boy repeats their names over and over again. 

Sat and Kayden hug him and hold each other. 

Maybe the dead boy isn’t dead after all.


End file.
